subshakerz
Hall of Fame Member
Assuming we are talking the post-war period, is there any pure batting, bowling or all-round performance that can be considered better than that?
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Is Botham's 81 Ashes the greatest series performance?
- Thread starter subshakerz
- Start date
OverratedSanity
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Statistically, there may be several that beat it (Sobers vs England in 66, Harbhajan vs Australia 01), but for clutch factor, Botham probably takes it.
Arachnodouche
International Captain
Flintoff's right up there with Botham, isn't he? 400 runs and 24 wickets? Has nearly the same inspirational significance too.
OverratedSanity
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Hard to say that tbh, Botham pulled two games out from the fire that England had pretty much lost.
subshakerz
Hall of Fame Member
Arguably Warne had as good a series then.
subshakerz
Hall of Fame Member
What about Lara 99 or 2001? Imran 82? Hadlee 85?
Coronis
International Coach
Obviously for batting Bradman deserves a shoutout for the 1930 Ashes. 974 runs in 7 innings, next highest was 436. Next highest on his own team was 345.
Bowling shoutout for Barnes 1913-14 tour of SA. 49 wickets in 8 innings. Next best was 19 wickets, next best on his own team was 10 wickets.
Considering he only played the first 4 tests that would change to 17 being the next highest and 7 on his own team.
Took 37% of the total wickets in those 4 tests and 62% of his teams wickets in those 4 tests.
No matter what you want to say re: competition etc the dominance these two had in their respective series was pretty crazy.
Bowling shoutout for Barnes 1913-14 tour of SA. 49 wickets in 8 innings. Next best was 19 wickets, next best on his own team was 10 wickets.
Considering he only played the first 4 tests that would change to 17 being the next highest and 7 on his own team.
Took 37% of the total wickets in those 4 tests and 62% of his teams wickets in those 4 tests.
No matter what you want to say re: competition etc the dominance these two had in their respective series was pretty crazy.
Coronis
International Coach
Warne had a ridiculous series too. I thought this was a generally acknowledged fact.
OverratedSanity
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As I said statistically, there may be several that beat it but Botham's ashes does have those two games where he single handedly turned certain defeat into a win.
Imran's 1982 series vs India is pretty crazy in terms of how far ahead he was of every other bowler. Insane numbers:
subshakerz
Hall of Fame Member
I said post-war.
subshakerz
Hall of Fame Member
Imran also scored a decent amount of runs that series too.
However, you are right, the context of those Botham games is hard to beat.
capt_Luffy
Cricketer Of The Year
Post War, as OS said; a few are statistically close; but Botham's clutch factor is too great to be beaten by mere statistics. Lara vs SL in which he scored 688 in 3 matches while Vaas and Murali ran through the other batsmen would had been my pick if this didn't existed.
OverratedSanity
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Some others for comparison:
- Imran in 82 vs India was 40 in 10. Took 49% of his team's wickets, 31% of the series' total wickets. India's batting lineup was pretty good at the time too.
- Harbhajan 01 vs Australia, 32 in 6 innings, 65% of his team's wickets (!!!), 31% of the series' total wickets. Second highest wicket taker for India was Sachin with 3 lmao. One of my favourite cricket stats.
Fuller Pilch
Hall of Fame Member
Smith 2019 Ashes
SillyCowCorner1
Moooo
Shakib is also the Man of the Series. That's two Blackberrys! Shakib returns to the podium for the umpteenth time, now to collect the series trophy. They might as well name the series after him.
Coronis
International Coach
Whats the analysis meant to be based on?